USA is an ESTJ with its primary function extraverted thinking and secondary one introverted sensing. Besides the USA and Australia (both originally colonies of ESTJ England), ESTJs and ISTJs are all European countries. The ESTJ American, English and Dutch have differences, though. The English are more contained, accomodating or indirect, whereas the Dutch and Americans are not. The English clearly prefer order and tradition, whereas the Dutch and Americans prefer to be unconventional and casual. The Dutch may be more similar to the Americans than the English but the Dutch are obviously empathic with their concern for the welfare of others, whereas Americans tend to be logical and impersonal. America is a pretty cold country. You are reminded of that expression 'We are a nation of laws' that politicians frequently state. A friend of mine says, "being impersonal is the only way to be" -- and he is not joking. Extraverted thinking types like the establishment of order and logic that laws provide, despite the obvious disregard for the human side of the equation. This is also the reason for the contractual nature of American society.

American thinking preference is seen in its love of competition in sports and business. Americans are taught to be "RAM tough" and be willing to get in a fight or go to war to prove we ain't gonna be kicked around. Individuals are responsible for succeeding on their own, and the homeless are just people who don't want to work. Americans have to take as much stress as it takes to succeed. One Australian commented after visiting New York, "What's the problem with Americans? Why are they so uptight?" One American embassy employee replied, "As Embassy staff it wouldn't be appropriate for us to convey our personal feelings." This is classic extraverted thinking -- feelings are not appropriate. As a thinking type, American culture does not prefer the accomodating facet of feeling. American extraverted thinking culture is ends-oriented, and develops 'mechanisms' for dealing with and solving problems. Americans expect everyone to fit in and be productive. Extraverted thinking types have principles and laws they live by and built an intellectual theory of logical organization of the world. This theory guides their personal actions and interactions with others. They personally believe and follow their theory and believe the rest of the world should be like America and tries to aggressively 'organize' the world. Even today, Americans continue corporate globalization and forceful democratization (i.e., 'live free or die') of the world. Democracy is a feeling-based system (harmony, consensus, tolerance, etc) but capitalism is based on the thinking logic of economics -- one that doesn't have human considerations. On the white horse of democracy is the dark rider of capitalism.

ESTJs can be blind to other points of view. Americans fail to understand and embrace other countries and cultures... Americans, as thinking types, have a tendency to be challenging and competitive, yet may occasionally prefer harmony. We love to observe debate, but when it comes down to it, we seem to prefer harmony as evidenced by the lack of efficacy in negative campaigns. As a culture, we prefer the positive while having a morbid sense of curiosity for the Jerry Springer-type of entertainment. Americans are thinking types, yet may feign acceptance and tolerance in some circumstances. The USA, actually, is a troublesome little fellow to try to analyze as a culture because what we value based on our actions is so very different based on what we claim to hold important. USA is not in reality very accepting, but with political correctness and other social pressures people keep some judgments to themselves more than they would. It's like a form of cognitive dissonance since we are really rather judgmental, but have decided that we should not be, which likely results in more than a little self-flagellation.

American culture is an extraverted thinking culture, but it also has a secondary preference for introverted sensing, types that are interested in commerce. The USA is a consumer society and Americans like commercials, advertising, promotions, sales, etc. The TV infomercials are filled with get-rich, start-your-own-business, and home business programs like how to flip properties, medical billing from home, multi-level marketing, etc. Some people say that English is the language of commerce; well, USA is a nation of commerce. Why do so many people want to come here? Sure it's that freedom thing, but wouldn't you agree, it's mostly for the money? There is a misconception that the USA is the most technologically advanced country. For example, compared to the USA, people living in countries like Japan and Korea can get a 100 times faster high-speed Internet access in their homes. One American attended an European conference on digital resources and was surprised at how advanced the Europeans were. She returned home to report what she had learned, but found her American co-workers weren't interested. They were determined to believe that the Europeans couldn't possibly know more than Americans about technology. Technological advancements are easier to see than social differences. There is also the American misconception that the USA is the most socially advanced society. Yet, when you live in other countries you find there are many different ways of life that are superior to American ways. Quality of life is better through the choices a society makes. These choices are the result of the culture type. A society that is a thinking culture will make very different choices from a feeling culture.

The American government doesn't publish stats on where Americans emigrate to, but there are loads of stats on immigrants coming to the USA. It's as if subconsciously Americans believe people only want to come to the USA and no American would want to leave it. But Americans do leave the USA, for social, cultural, and other reasons. Canada (a feeling type culture) has received a large number of American immigrants, especially after W. Bush was reelected. One Ontario Canadian commented, "Americans are immigrating to Canada for the better quality of life, national healthcare, and higher minimum wage, but many Canadian doctors are moving to the USA because they can make more money. One Australian joked that the biggest illegal immigration problem they have is with Americans. Americans may think of themselves as also having a few intuitive traits. The USA is very structured, but also built on resourceful, inventive and entrepreneural people. Some of the USA is theoretical and well-read (northeast) and some experiental. One east-coast American thought practical (sensing) represented the blue collar and conceptual (intuition) the white collar. Americans trust experience, yet may have a hard time separating that from theories. I doubt most Americans actually understand the difference. See any news report that starts with, 'According to a recent study,' as an example how Americans don't successfully separate hard, empirical science from the theoretical and initial observations. We are more pseudo-intellectuals and more of an instant gratification culture. Therefore we are more results-oriented. We don't want to think too much, we just want some product or service right at this instant.

The warrior and seeker are the dominant archetypes in American culture. The USA is a "Warrior/Seeker" culture in which we are surrounded by self-improvement schemes, all of which are designed to help us live up to some standard or other. The sage was determined as the dominant archetype in Eastern Buddhist culture; on the other hand, Western Christianity is a "Ruler/Magician religion." Additionally, the magician and jester archetypes are part of the African and American Indian cultures. Archetypes play out in individual lives and cultures like dominant themes that come and go in a cyclical way. The German culture played out the dark side of the destroyer during WWII and rebirthed to a new country after the fall of the Berlin wall. Currently, France with its riots is also playing out the destroyer as one of its rising archetypes. The destroyer is a reoccuring archetype as seen in France's history of revolution. France is an ENTJ and has a destroyer archetype rising and subsiding throughout its history. Maybe other NT countries share this same archetype experience.

Herbert Marcuse analyzed the integration of the industrial working class into capitalist society and new forms of capitalist stabilization and questioned the Marxian postulates of the revolutionary proletariat and inevitability of capitalist crisis. He was concerned about the decline of revolutionary potential in the West. The "advanced industrial society" has created false needs, which integrated individuals into the existing system of production and consumption via mass media, advertising, industrial management, and contemporary modes of thought. This results in a "one-dimensional" universe of thought and behavior in which aptitude and ability for critical thought and oppositional behavior wither away. Against this prevailing climate, Marcuse promotes the "great refusal" as the only adequate opposition to all-encompassing methods of control.

Day after day we get up early and trudge to work. We swallow our pride and put up with being ordered around by the boss. We sweat and toil at jobs we hate, wasting away our lives. Why do we do it? Because we have to? Because we need the money? Or because we don't know how to live any other way? As Americans, we work way too hard. Most of us work 40 or more hours a week from when we are 18 years old until after we turn 60. One in four American workers works more than 49 hours a week. 1:8 works more than 60 hours a week and one in ten holds down more than one job. And we keep working more and more. Americans have added 20 extra work days to our work year since 1970. American factory workers work an average of five weeks a year in overtime alone. Americans work 2 months more per year than the French and Germans. We must be crazy.

Working this hard is weird and unnatural. For hundreds and thousands of years before the dawn of history, people lived as hunter-gatherers and simple farmers. Hunting and gathering is a pretty relaxed way to make a living. Modern hunter-gatherers like Native Australians "work" less than 4 hours a day. Even after we gave up the forests and built cities, we still didn't work very hard. During medieval times in Europe, people worked as few as 120 days a year. There is no reason for us to be working so hard. As advances in technology help us work more productively, we should be able to work less. Today, American workers are ten times more productive than we were 100 years ago. That means, for every hour we work today, we produce as many goods and services as workers produced in 10 hours in 1890. That also means we should be able to work 1/10th as much, and live just as well, as people did back then. That would be less than 8 hours of work a week.

Since we don't work 8 hours a week, where did all that extra productivity go? A lot of it went as profits into the pockets of the rich. The rich in America are richer than any other group of people EVER in the history of the world. If we work harder or better, our bosses aren't under any obligation to pay us more or let us work less. Sadly, that's how capitalism works. The rest of that productivity went into "improving" our standard of living. We made a decision to buy more rather than work less. Some of the things we bought really did improve the way we live. Very few homes in 1890 had running water, electricity or flush toilets. But most of what we bought were fluff consumer products like big cars and color TVs that are fun to own, but that we don't really need. The question is: why did we make this choice? Why did we choose to buy more crap instead of working less?

We didn't. American corporations made the choice for us by brain- washing us with advertising. Advertisements are everywhere, telling us we will be happier, better looking, admired, respected and even loved, if we just buy this or that product. Of course, we all know that we can't buy happiness or love, but with advertising poking into every part of our lives, it's hard not to give in to the idea that we can buy a better life. Eventually almost everyone does give in to the dull, exhausting trap of work and spend, work and spend, produce and consume. The price for this choice is high. Work saps our spirit and crushes our sense of freedom. Kissing our boss's ass all day is humiliating. The worst is when we actually get used to being pushed around. Human beings need to be free to develop our independent selves. The more we work, the less we think like free people and the more we think like dogs: dull and obedient.

Work takes time from other, better things like being with our families and friends, traveling, making love, drinking beer, painting, writing, reading, playing music, cooking and eating good food, etc. These are the things that make life rich and interesting. Work makes life boring, short and gray. Work is also killing us. 25,000 American workers are killed each year on the job. Two million more are disabled and 25 million are injured. These numbers don't include the 50 thousand Americans who are killed each year in car crashes, many of whom are traveling to or from work. Finally, we can't afford to keep consuming things the way we do. Americans make up only 5% of the world's population, but we consume more than 25% of the world's resources and energy. Soon those resources will run out. Our over-producing industries are filling the sky and water with smoke and sludge. Most of the smog in the air comes from people commuting to work in cars. Our consumption habit is ruining the earth.

To keep up the flow of resources into our country, we force the rest of the world (and many poor Americans) to do our dirty work. Poor people in places like Mexico and South Africa sweat all day in factories and mines so that we can have cheap fabric and coal to make our clothes and heat our homes. The median income world-wide is only $2,000 per person a year. The average American makes 65 times the salary of the poorest half of the world. If we could learn to work and consume less, these poor people could spend less time working for us, and more time working to feed and house themselves. If we want to be free, if we want to really live our lives, if we want to live on a healthy planet, if we want to end suffering and exploitation in the world, we will have to learn to work less.

But if I work less, won't I starve?

Most Americans have a terrible fear that if they stop working all the time, they won't be able to afford food and rent. The trick is learning how to work less by learning how to spend a lot less. Living cheap doesn't mean suffering and starving. You can live cheap and also enjoy a comfortable, plentiful life.

But I like my job.

There are some lucky people who have better jobs or who work at jobs where they do something they like. If you are one of these people, you have to ask yourself; Do you really like your job, or do you just hate your job less than most people? If you had a choice, would you choose to work at your job for 40 hours a week? Even sex would get boring after going at it for 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. Work can spoil anything. Many people love gardening, but farm-work is hot and back-breaking. Cooking can be fun, but working as a cook in a busy restaurant is hell. If you like your job now, you will like your job even more if you work less.

If I don't work, what will I do?

Working less doesn't mean being unproductive. Take gardening again: Gardening doesn't pay. To make gardening pay, you would have to work like a farmer. But you can easily grow lots of vegetables, possibly enough to live on, simply by goofing around in your garden. Why work?

Life is an adventure if you have the time. There are so many things to do in the world, one person couldn't possibly do them all. It's sad: we get so caught up in our jobs, that when we get home, we can't think of anything better to do with ourselves than watch TV. Don't be a zombie slave - quit your job!

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"No matter how much I hated it, I had to face up to the fact that I would have to earn some money. I was like many fullbloods. I didn’t want to work in an office or a factory. I thought myself too good for that, not because I was stuck up, but because any human being is too good for that kind of no-life, even white people. I trained myself to need and want as little as could be so that I wouldn’t have to work except when I felt like it. That way, I got along with plenty of time to think, to ask, to learn, to listen, to count coup with the girls." - John Lame Deer

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"I do not like work, even when another person does it." -Mark Twain

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"Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do." -Oscar Wilde

It happens when you feel depressed. It's like you're watching the movie of your own life, and you have no control over what happens. But I do not really mind the disassociation. It gives me an ability to think outside the box since I am "observing." You get a sense of what's really going on, and all the ambiguities in perception that arise. It can be frustrating sometimes, though, when you have to make an interaction decision 'cuz now with all that extra knowledge it's not like you can just be impulsive.